The most dreaded part about college: Academic Research. Notice, I didn't say it was the worst part about college, just the most dreaded part. Academic Research takes up a lot of time. It's hard to find sources and lets not forget about those pesky annotated bibliographies.
When starting a college research project it is important to be familiar with your schools library. The library is your friend! Last semester I dabbled in a bit of research, but not a ton. The school's library has many resources that will make academic research a thousand times easier. Trust me.
It was required for my English 301 to watch six videos on the different types of places you can find academic research in the library or anywhere on the web. One of the main videos previewed, was ways to create a "search statement,"which is keywords that help narrow your topic. The videos showed EBSCO Host and how to access that web browser. It also showed how to use the library system to find books. Most people don't want to find books for research but sometimes they can be the most reliable. The deeper you have to search for the research, the more useful it will be in your paper. These sources are extremely vital in becoming a good researcher and finding reliable, relevant research.
Academic Research are two words that most students dread hearing about from there professors. Majority of students don't like academic research because it's hard work. The needed academic journals won't just pop out at you. If your "search statements" aren't direct enough you'll end up with thousands of articles. The "search statements" are just the beginning.
Academic research is not as bad as it sounds. Most likely you've chosen a topic that your are remotely interested in so finding information to cover that topic should be interesting.
Academic research is difficult because you never know where the research will lead you. You could start off with one topic nailed down but then you start researching it and it can change five different times. You keep reading different things on your topic and trying to pinpoint the exact information for your paper and that is a challenge. I don't think academic research has to be as bad as everyone sees it to be. Most students/people don't like what they don't understand. They are afraid of things they can't navigate and then it makes them feel a certain way towards that issue. Academic Research is one of those things that students don't like. If every student had a course on how to properly locate academic sources, I would guess the dislike of academic research would decrease supremely. Even if professors took time out of class to show students that academic research is not as scary as it sounds, students would not be so hesitant about it.
Another point they could be taken into consideration regarding academic research could be taken as a challenge for professors. Along the lines of comparing "street smarts" and "intellect" and thinking about my last post on blogging, professors could try the route of bringing in relevant information from the students lives into academic research. If professors tried to help compare real life to the research process it might be a good way to get students more involved in research and not make them dread it so much.
Whether they know how to do it well or not, academic research is something that all students will have to take part in at some point in time in their academic career. This topic will never go away. I wish academic research wasn't as scary to students as it is because it would benefit them quite a bit if they knew how to do it correctly. I think that students would be able to get the full academic reward of this knowledge they've found, if they weren't so stand-offish about it.
In other words, academic research is unfortunately one part of college that will always be that issue that no one wants to talk about, much less fix, until it is right under their noses for an essay. If students did choose to turn their cheek and try to find the good in research, they might find that it's not as bad as it sounds and they might just enjoy it.
Have a lovely day, always remember to stop and enjoy the sunshine.
~Kelsey
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